I actually think the original post is a bit on the BS side. There are enough (conflicting) studies that you can make any case you’re predisposed too. Lot’s of opportunity for confirmation bias.
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Mod note: Stay on topic. This is about gun ownership. Start new topics for tangents.
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And I think it’s an act of pure arrogance to assume we can’t learn any valuable lessons from how other countries have found solutions to similar problems.
“Let’s ignore what works everywhere else, we’re America!” has poisoned every public policy discussion from health care reform to net neutrality.
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Awesome post. Kudos!
But for contrast, I actually am a bit worried about being shot. We all have our own lives, mine tends to be an ongoing soap opera.
On December 22nd at 2am EDT a couple of men came up on my back deck and began pounding on the windows and doors of my house, hard enough that I feared they’d break the glass. I was the only one awake, washing dishes in the kitchen, so I grabbed the biggest knife (note my usernym - that’s not quite as crazy as it sounds) and headed for the door.
Just as I reached the back door, so did they, and as I looked through the glass I saw a uniform. Consider this: I am currently involved in the breakup of an illegal dumping ring run by a Wilmington police officer; I’m one of three key witnesses and the only one that is well known by all the dumpers. Wilmington police officers have, in the past, engaged in execution style murder and the leader of the dumping ring has come to my house in the past uninvited to try to… persuade me that I should not interfere with his activities.
Needless to say, I got as far away from that knife as I could, as quickly as possible. I had some absurd idea that if I was going to go down, I didn’t want to make it extra easy to pin the blame on me. (Of course in real life they’d just put a switchblade in my cold dead hand, like they did to Derek Hale, so that was kind of stupid.)
Anyway, the officers were both armored and heavily armed, one of them “in full battle rattle” as they say. At least they’d left the dog (I don’t respond well to aggressive dogs) in one of the cars they’d used to blockade my drive. They claimed that because they’d found some of my mail on a neighbor’s property, and the neighbor’s car alarm had been triggered, they were within their rights to interrogate me and then cross-examine my wife. I believe that if they had seen that knife (or worse yet a gun) I would not be typing this today.
Note this story actually supports the idea that guns aren’t of much use (to me, at least) for self-defense. As a law-abiding citizen, I know that I have far more to fear from the police than I do from any criminal. Criminals know that they may face prosecution and imprisonment, but cops know they can murder people in cold blood, on camera, and get away with it. If I fear anything, I fear police and dogs. Those are the two agencies most likely to leave my children fatherless, in any real life evaluation of my own unique circumstances. And frankly, lawful gun owners are even less threat to me than criminals - they’re mainly a threat to themselves and their own families.
(I see now that @jonhester and @popobawa4u already made these points without anecdote.)
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Why does a luck dragon need to be prepared? Aren’t they just lucky?
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I don’t think they fixed anything. Yes they reduced gun crime but now they have stuff like this because of knife crime. http://www.southportreporter.com/385/Knife%20Crime%20Text%20Card%20Front%20and%20Back.jpg
And you made something illegal that a majority of people used in a responsible, legal manner. Where is the logic in that?
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Don’t-push-your-luck dragon.
On one hand I understand the distrust of government agencies on this issue from the NRA. On the other hand I think we need to more hard data. Nothing is stopping a third party watch group from tracking at least the official data, police reports and news reports. It still won’t track the stuff that never gets reported.
“They” who? All those other first world countries with lower homicide rates than the U.S.?
Part of @Medievalist’s question was “how to reduce accidental gun deaths.” It’s relatively rare for kids to accidentally stab themselves or others to death with the knife they found stashed in Daddy’s nightstand.
More like “made dangerous thing much more difficult to acquire, even for people who used it in a responsible, legal manner.” And that’s a shame, but it’s what a society often has do with really dangerous things. Most people who use plutonium or dynamite or cyanide use them in a responsible, legal manner too.
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The harder I practice the luckier I get - Gary Player
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I AM worried about being shot. In the area of Pittsburgh in which I live, I hear gunshots on the reg and in fact, had a slug fired through my bathroom wall about a month ago, which pierced two walls before the hot slug came to rest on the floor in my hall. Guns scare the shit out of me.
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Unregulated Linotype’s in your home? Without a license or proper training? Are you mad?
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Well said, thank you. Having been to Australia and other places where tougher gun ownership laws have been passed, in my experience, the prevailing opinion seems to be “it seemed crazy at first, but now that we have these laws, we feel much much safer, and have started to see America as a dangerous, lawless gun zone.”
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Some people are apparently wired to fight. (No wonder, it feels good at times. The Rush of Righteous Wrath seems to be a drug of its own class.)
I have a painless, nonpolitical solution that would greatly help: an indicator that the gun is loaded, well-visible to the user, invisible from the delivery side (to keep the psychological advantage even when the gun is not loaded). Would itself lower the accident number by about a quarter (assuming a retrofit on all existing guns).
Has to be done simple enough to not impair the weapon’s reliability, and prefer failing in showing loaded (a failed indicator is worse than none, and nothing is 100% reliable, so engineer to default to the less accident-baiting state).
One random thought I have is a betablocker autoinjector in the gun stock. For suppressing the adrenaline shakes in a high-stress situation.
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Yep, this discussion needs more bullets. 
Personally I’m with @Medievalist on this. Pandora’s box has been open for far too long in the US. I don’t think we can put the guns away for good. Firearms can be safely handled, and used properly, can play a key role in self-defense.
It’s going to be difficult if not impossible to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, so I wouldn’t even bother at this point.
Children, angry spouses/partners and the mentally ill should not have access to firearms. Children maybe, under the proper supervision and with weapons of the proper caliber (BB guns and .22 rifles), maybe, but not unfettered access for sure.
Gun violence, both accidental and intentional is a difficult problem in the US. Though I am 90% liberal in my leanings, I go the other way when it comes to gun ownership, despite the fact that I don’t own a gun (If I did, it would be the Taurus Judge and I’d keep Winchester Supreme Elite PDX1 on hand).
I would like to know how we can solve this problem in the US. Taking guns away from law-abiding, sane, responsible gun owners doesn’t seem like a solution to me. The attrition idea is interesting. Good luck ending the manufacture and sales of firearms in today’s America, though.
I think if we look at the biggest problems facing the US today, even throttled back just to those things in the US that are killing people today, guns are far enough down the list that I’d rather focus on the other things. Universal healthcare seems like a great place to put our money, not just because it will directly save lives, but perhaps it could indirectly reduce our country’s mental health problems, which might mean fewer violent gun rampages…
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To hell with any and all “justification” arguments. That is noise, and all references to them by either side is nonsense.
I have the right to own guns. I refuse to give up that right for any reason. I will not allow anyone to take my rights from me without a fight - a nonviolent ‘fight’ if possible but a violent one if need be.
I do not care if you are afraid of guns, of getting shot, or anything else. Your fear does not trump my rights. You deal with your fear by some means other than trying to deprive me of my rights.
If you have suffered because of a gun accident, or because someone with a gun deliberately did wrong, you have my sincere sympathies. But your pain does not trump my rights.
I have absolutely no intention of ever shooting you or anyone else. I will if I am forced to do so. I understand that you have no reason to simply take me at my word when I say that you are in no danger from me. But the same is true for me. We both have to simply stay aware.
I do not care about the argument that defensive use “justifies” any death rate. I intend to keep guns for my enjoyment and for my own self defense if it becomes necesary. MY self defense. My gun ownership is not relevant to anyone else’s use or misuse of guns, and vice versa.
I am responsible ONLY for my own actions. I am not responsible or liable for anyone else’s actions, legal or otherwise. I will NOT allow my rights and my property to be taken from me because someone else committed a crime with a gun. It would be a travesty of both logic and justice to think that I should be served in such a manner because someone else did wrong, and I refuse to be punished for someone else’s crime.
WHAT FOREIGNERS THINK ABOUT THE GUN SITUATION IN AMERICA IS 100%, TOTALLY, ABSOLUTELY IRRELEVANT.
I think every grade school in America should include gun safety courses. If children learn that guns are not toys, there would be fewer accidents.
I think that completing a gun safety course (note: NOT “passing”) should be a requirement for citizenship. If you are going to sensibly exercise the 2nd Amendment right, you should have at least some idea of what it really means.
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The government fears an unfettered press much more than it fears uncontrolled gun ownership. Unlike guns, the output from a Linotype machine can make people think, and a government fears NOTHING more than it fears a public that actually thinks about what the government is up to.
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Many Americans also have misperceptions on just how draconian those gun laws are. For example, in Australia it’s quite difficult for most people to get their hands on an AR-15, but it’s not that hard to get a rifle or a shotgun if you’re a hunter or a farmer. In fact the first and only time I ever fired a shotgun was on an Australian cattle ranch. Australians can even use handguns if they’re part of a target shooting club.
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Those gun-control nuts are trying to take away freedoms! Here’s some bullshit pro-gun thing I think you should have to do before you can vote.
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I think you’re on the right track.
The USA glorifies violence. All things military are the shit and cause for pride and pathos. Might makes right is the prevailing attitude in foreign politics. All symptoms of a cult of violence. The mindset and moralities are from the 17th century. As long as this doesn’t change there will be no gun control.
One of the reasons given for the unusual amount of police violence and deaths caused by police is gun ownership
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